Doesn’t that leave a bitter aftertaste, you ask, and I can only respond that I like the bitter taste. Because it’s bitter and because it’s my own.
CHAPTER 20
Jeppe had left the car in the sun, and when he returned to it the steering wheel was so hot that he had to fish out a rag from the glove compartment to be able to hold it. He rolled down all the windows and turned the fan up to max. As he pulled out from in front of the community garden into the dense traffic, Anette called. Her voice cut sharply through the noise of the traffic.
“We have the murder weapon! A tape dispenser Esther de Laurenti found on her desk an hour ago. Bloody. Clausen confirms that the blood is in all likelihood from Julie. The perpetrator must have set it down in a pool of blood.”
“What was the murder weapon doing on Esther de Laurenti’s desk?” Jeppe stepped on it and just made the green light by the Fisketorvet shopping mall.
“Good question. I sent a picture of the tape dispenser to Caroline Boutrup. It belongs to her, usually sits on a shelf in the girls’ living room. She just hadn’t noticed that it was missing.”
“Fingerprints?”
“Nada. But it is interesting how it ended up in Esther de Laurenti’s apartment. And why.”
Jeppe stopped at a red light at the Kalvebod Wharf and looked at the series of concrete office buildings built where his view of the water should have been.
“Either someone wanted to incriminate her… or maybe she tried to protect someone? Kristoffer most likely.”
“This case is driving me crazy!” Anette groaned. “Are you on your way over here? Where are you?”
“On my way to Østerbro. The second member of the writers’ group, Anna Harlov, lives there in those old terraced houses, you know, the Potato Rows. Hey, by the way, could you please ask Saidani to run a background check on Erik Kingo?”
“Anything interesting about him?” She sounded hopeful.
“Not at first glance. He seems to have an alibi.” Jeppe drove between Tivoli and the central train station, slowly because of the many tourists crossing the street, with their eyes on the amusement park instead of the roadway. “But he had met both Julie and Kristoffer at Esther de Laurenti’s place.”
“Aha.” The hope in her voice was already gone. “I’ll get Saidani to run the check. Maybe Kingo’ll turn out to be an extravagant consumer of Scotch tape, so we’ll have yet another goose to chase.”
She ended the call just as Jeppe parked under a chestnut tree on Farimagsgade alongside the little terraced houses that in recent years had become as fashionable as waterfront homes. They were all charming, renovated with creativity and large sums of discreet money.
Anna Harlov’s house was no exception. The wrought iron gate closed with an understated click behind Jeppe as he walked the four paces over the front yard’s cobblestones up to the glossy black front door. Therese’s greatest desire had been to live here in the Potato Rows, and he had always teased her for being an incorrigible snob who was willing to pay through the nose to live in old worker housing just because it had become popular among the cultural elite. Now of course she could move here with Niels and decorate with distressed wood and feebleness like all the others.
The door opened before he had a chance to ring the brass doorbell, and a woman holding a bag of trash looked at him in alarm.
“Oh, you startled me. You’re a bit early. Detective Kørner, isn’t it? You’ll excuse me for not shaking your hand.”
She squeezed around him and walked over to the garbage can in the front yard. Her hair was gathered into a disheveled honey-blond bun atop her head, and the scent of sun-warmed fruit hung around her. Jeppe watched her lift the lid of the garbage can and push the bag down with her hands. She was barefoot and wearing a black jumpsuit, which looked like it had cost the same as a small car. The fabric rose up and hugged her thighs each time she pushed down on the trash. Her ass was round and attractive, her arms slender with a deep Mediterranean tan.
To his surprise, Jeppe’s groin tingled. Anna Harlov’s breasts hung freely inside the silky fabric, and images of warm, naked skin popped into his head. As she turned around and smiled at him, her face open and carefree, her teeth bright white, his penis swelled—slowly but surely becoming the first erection of the year.
“Thank God they’re picking it up tomorrow. We had eel last night and there’s nothing worse than the smell of fish bones in hot weather.”
She passed him once more, brushing against him on the doorstep, so that he, for an unguarded second, almost reached for her.
“I mean, I know we’re not supposed to eat eel, but it’s farmed and totally legal. And it tastes so good. Anyway, come in. I’m just going to wash my hands. I’ll be right there.”
Eight months without an erection, not even the faintest hint of one, and then it had to happen now, in a front yard in Østerbro. Jeppe felt a surge of relief, immediately replaced by embarrassment. He silently cursed the tight jeans his friend Johannes had talked him into buying in celebration of his new lean body—nothing like the breakup of a marriage to have the pounds drop off—and followed Anna Harlov into the house.
The place was, just as expected, expensively and tastefully furnished in a casual, intellectual way. Built-in shelves with books two deep, light wood floors, and Bolivian wool blankets on the Børge Mogensen sofa. Ten to one, they have a summer house up north, where they eat fresh prawns and drink natural wine with their smug boho friends, Jeppe thought, trying to force his erection down by scorning the object of his desire, who was standing in the open kitchen, washing her hands in a custom-made stainless steel sink.
Anna Harlov nodded toward a round wooden table and asked him to have a seat. There was a copper thermos, stoneware cups, and a little bowl of cookies already laid out on the table. Next to a glass door that opened out onto the backyard hung a black-and-white photo of Anna Harlov sitting on a bench with a considerably older man. The man was gesticulating animatedly, and Anna looking lovingly at him.
“I have been expecting you to get in touch. Actually, I’m surprised I haven’t heard from you until now.”
She poured them both coffee and sat down. Her voice was deep and slightly husky and reminded him of some actor. He crossed his legs and forced himself to behave professionally.
“Do you have something to tell us then?”
She blew a lock of hair away from her eyes.
“I don’t know more than what I’ve been able to read in the papers,” she said, “but there is a remarkable coincidence between the murder of Julie Stender and the manuscript that Esther is working on, which Erik and I have had access to for several weeks. I mean, I would consider that relatively suspicious if I were investigating the case.”
Jeppe felt her critical eyes on him. Unfortunately, that had no calming effect on his untimely libido.
“When did you first read it?” he asked.
“Immediately after she uploaded the first part—the character description of the victim—at the beginning of July and then the actual murder a week ago.”
“Did you know who she was writing about?”
She blew on her coffee and drank tentatively. “At the time I just thought that she had been inspired by the two girls, although I can’t say I really paid much attention. When you write fiction, you draw from reality.”
“Had you ever met Julie Stender?”
“Yes, once. She was the server at a dinner party Esther held, back in March I think it was.”
Anna Harlov had attended that party, too. Jeppe printed THE DINNER on his notepad.
“Erik Kingo was there that night, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, and a number of other people. My husband, for example.”
Was it just his imagination, or had she balked a little at mentioning her husband? Lost in thought, she moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue and then ran her index finger over them. In his honor?
Jeppe pulled himself together and asked, “Can you remember anything
in particular from that dinner?”
“We go out a lot, so that specific night doesn’t stand out crystal clear in my memory. It was pleasant enough, I remember that much. Is there anything specific you want to know?”
“Were there any disagreements?”
“Well, not exactly.” She blinked slowly and held the eye contact.
Jeppe looked down and cleared his throat. “Did Julie Stender have contact with any of the guests?”
“I actually talked to her a little myself, asked her if she had gotten settled in the city and what she was going to study. Otherwise it was mostly small talk when she and the other one, the young guy, served and cleared the table. But now that I think about it I did see Erik talking to her in the kitchen at one point later on. I remember because he raised his voice to her.”
Jeppe looked up again. Erik Kingo claimed he hadn’t had any contact with Julie.
“Do you know why?” Jeppe asked.
She shook her head, causing another golden lock to fall out of her bun. Was he imagining things or was she moving provocatively?
“You say that there must be a connection between Esther de Laurenti’s manuscript and the murder of Julie Stender. Could you elaborate on that?”
“I don’t know if I can. As a matter of fact we weren’t even home at the beginning of the week. My husband had a gallery opening in Aarhus on Tuesday, and I went with him. But, I mean, it’s obvious that the killer read the manuscript.”
“You haven’t shown the manuscript to anyone or discussed it?”
“No. The guidelines for our writers’ group are quite clear. All material is one hundred percent confidential among the three of us.” A little smile danced across her soft lips. It looked like an invitation. “But listen, I think we’re skirting around the issue here.”
Jeppe reached for his coffee cup but was so unsure of his hand that he pulled it back again. His brain was being bombarded with images of Anna Harlov, naked, thrown on the table with her expensive outfit ripped to pieces and his mouth on her breasts. If she so much as nodded to him now, he wouldn’t be responsible for the consequences.
“One thing is that someone read Esther’s text on our Google Docs and abused it. But who is writing in it now? Esther would never do something so tasteless.”
Jeppe calmed his disappointed libido with a gulp of coffee and wiped up the drops he spilled on the table with his hand before he spoke.
“Writing in it? I don’t understand.”
“Are you telling me you don’t know?” She got up and fetched a laptop from the living room. A few keystrokes later, she turned the screen to him.
There was blood spatter in her blond eyelashes, filigree against her pale skin. She bore the mark on her cheek like an adornment.
He had bestowed eternal beauty on her. Her friend was given a last flight, landing in a circle of light.
Generous gifts. Can you see me now?
“And it keeps going like that. It was uploaded late last night. Who’s writing it?”
Jeppe swore, pulled his phone out of his tight pants and called Saidani. She answered right away, sounding perturbed.
“I was just about to call you. I only just realized a new text had been uploaded. Esther de Laurenti didn’t write it; I just checked with her. I’m trying to find out where and how someone logged into the group.”
“Good. I’m on my way. Call the team together. We’ll meet in the personnel room in ten.” Jeppe put the phone back in his pocket. Who would start writing in the authors’ Google Docs folder other than the killer? This cemented the fact that the murders and the manuscript were inextricably linked.
He stood up and nodded to Anna Harlov.
“We’ll need to speak with you again. Until then, please don’t hesitate to contact me if you happen to think of anything at all that might be significant to the investigation.”
He handed her a business card and walked purposefully toward the front door, into the narrow front hall. An impressive collection of locks on the door confused him and he hesitated for a second, not sure what to turn to get out.
“Don’t worry, no one knows how to open the door until they’ve been here seven or eight times.”
Anna Harlov had followed him into the hall and was standing right behind him. He stepped aside to let her by. As she reached up to the top lock, she let her soft breasts brush against his arm and lingered in that position.
“Maybe it’s just a sign that you should stay?” She looked mischievously at him for a long second and then opened the door. Before he had a chance to react he was standing in the front yard, the door being closed behind him.
Confused, short of breath, and with the stiffest cock in Northern Europe.
* * *
IT TOOK JEPPE most of the drive back to the station to get his body under control. He hadn’t felt this kind of desire in a long time. The cost of a comfortable relationship is a comfortable sex life, at best. Somewhere between the second and third insemination attempt, his and Therese’s once so playful sex had turned into forced copulation at specific times with only one objective.
And now here he was in his car, trembling like a teenager. Anna Harlov! Was she manipulating him just for fun or maybe trying to cast a smokescreen because she had something to hide?
Back at headquarters, he headed straight for the bathroom before his colleagues could swarm him with questions and demands. Luckily the bathroom was empty. He locked the door and rejected a call from Johannes before washing his hands thoroughly and drying them with one of the rough paper towels. A text beeped in. Johannes was obviously displeased.
Now that your best friend has invited you to his birthday party tonight, you just stay home! One can always go to parties and dance. It’s all about watching bad TV and falling asleep on the sofa while you can. J.
As usual, Jeppe had forgotten to respond to the invitation that had arrived by old-fashioned mail weeks ago in the hopes that it would disappear on its own. It was going to be difficult to wiggle his way out of this one. He would have to use the case as an excuse. Johannes would have to accept that, wouldn’t he?
With his nerve ends jangling like wind chimes in a storm, Jeppe took out the little pillbox he always carried in a jacket pocket. Once upon a time it had contained some French lavender candies, which had cost more per ounce than enriched uranium, but now it contained his acetaminophen and OxyContin. Pills he’d taken for his back pain, to which he’d since grown a little too accustomed. The pills took on a slightly perfumed scent that masked the unpleasant chalky taste a little.
He swallowed one of one kind and two of the other and looked at himself in the mirror while he wiped the water off his chin. The convex mirror today. The skin on his face looked waxen, and he knew it wasn’t merely because of his failed hair-dye job and the bathroom’s fluorescent lighting. He took a deep breath and let the chemicals do their magic, felt the tension seeping mercifully out him until he was calm.
Back at the staff room he opened the door and saw Thomas Larsen, Falck, and Anette Werner sitting at a table chatting. Sara Saidani stood by an open window with her back to the room and seemed to be off in her own world.
“Well, Saidani? Let’s hear it!”
She turned around and walked to the table where her computer sat ready. A breeze of mild, almost cheerful air followed in her wake. It contrasted with the serious look on her face. It made Jeppe feel a little better.
“At eleven fifty last night an unknown person uploaded a new page of text to the writers’ online folder. I was actually planning to take the page down. I thought it would be best, what with all the media discussion and so on. But now I think we’d better let it stay open.”
“Good thinking, Saidani,” Jeppe agreed. “As I understand from the first part of the text, the author claims responsibility for both killings. He discusses both the pattern on the face and mentions Kristoffer’s flight into the chandelier. Of course, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything other than that some idiot read
the papers and hacked the authors’ folder.”
“It’s obviously password protected,” Saidani said, squinting skeptically. “Three user profiles with individual usernames and passwords have been established. I have a log of traffic on the page for the last three months, which shows who has commented and when. The person who uploaded this text last night was logged in as Erik Kingo.”
“Kingo? He claims he’s completely cut off from any conceivable internet connection in his cabin.” Jeppe noted with satisfaction that the pills were taking effect. A comfortable numbness spread through his body, his lower back relaxed, and his lips tingled just a little.
“That could be a lie.” Saidani shrugged. “It’s true that he hasn’t been logged in since the beginning of July, when he left comments on Esther de Laurenti’s manuscript. But someone who knows his username and password added this text just before midnight yesterday.”
“I’ll contact him. His phone is turned off most of the time, so I guess I have to head out to see him.” Jeppe winced at the thought of revisiting the inhospitable community garden.
“What about the Instagram picture of Julie’s face?” Anette spoke with something in her mouth, licorice maybe. “Do we know any more about that?”
“I can’t tell who posted it,” Saidani said, shaking her head in frustration. “But I’m doing a check on the people who left a like or comment before the profile was taken down. The picture received almost two hundred likes, so it’s a lot of legwork. People must have thought it was a joke or something.”
Saidani’s cheeks had grown slightly pink. Jeppe watched her and suppressed a smile. Maybe she was really just shy? He turned to Larsen, who was looking fresh and relaxed in a crisply ironed light blue shirt.
“Good, a summary of the autopsy?”
Larsen rolled up his sleeve with self-confidence. If his misjudgment about Kristoffer being the killer had bothered him, he was over it now.
“Kristoffer Gravgaard passed away yesterday, Thursday, August ninth, between six thirty and seven thirty p.m. Nyboe has determined that the cause of death was cardiac arrest—”
The Tenant Page 15